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 LI E) R.AR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVLRSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
 1
 
 THE LEWES RIOT, 
 
 ITS CAUSES AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 EEV. J. M. IS^EALE, M.A. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOSEPH MASTERS, ALDERSGATE STREET, 
 
 AND NEW BOND STREET. 
 MDCCCLVII.
 
 more at length), your Lordship thought fit to make 
 public two letters. The one was to the Mother Superior 
 of S. Margaret's, withdrawing your support and coun- 
 tenance from that Institution ; the other to Mr. Scobell, 
 assuring him of the " deep felt sympathy of every 
 upright candidly religious " person ; and speaking of 
 myself as " that infatuated man." 
 
 It might appear strange that in neither letter did 
 there occur one word of sympathy for those ladies whom 
 you had hitherto supported, and who had suffered so 
 severely from a furious mob,— nor one word of reproba- 
 tion of the unchristian and unmanly violence which 
 called for the reprobation of the civil magistrate, but 
 not, it seems, for that of the chief pastor of the Diocese. 
 In withdrawing your name from S. Margaret's, not one 
 word of kindness, of sympathy, of gratitude for services 
 rendered to the poor of your own Episcopal charge : 
 not one inquiry whether the charges on which you con- 
 demn the Institution were true : a sentence pronounced 
 without any investigation, and without any knowledge 
 on the part of the sufferers of who their accusers were. 
 Those two letters, as others besides your Lordship will 
 read this communication, I give in the Appendix.^ 
 
 We were convinced that they were written under a 
 deeply mistaken impression, and from statements calcu- 
 lated and intended to mislead. The Mother Superior 
 and myself, not only as so deeply interested in the wel- 
 fare of S. Margaret's, but also as co-executors of the 
 will of our poor Sister, whose removal from us has been 
 the immediate cause of the subject of my letter, felt 
 anxious without loss of tim.e to lay before your Lordship 
 the true state of the case, convinced that, when you 
 should once have become acquainted with it, you would 
 as an act of the barest justice retract or qualify state- 
 ments made in ignorance of the real facts. The Mother 
 Superior, therefore, taking with her the necessary docu- 
 ments, went to Chichester, and requested an interview 
 with your Lordship. It was peremptorily refused. She 
 offered to wait your own time, and urged the importance <»3«^ 
 
 of the letters which she had to lay before you. For all ^. ., 
 
 J J ^ UJUC 
 
 ^ See Letters 1 and 2. '^■>*>*«0
 
 reply, she was informed by the servant that, till she left 
 the apartment into which she had been shown, your 
 Lordship's interviews with others could not proceed. 
 That anyone, be his rank or station what it may, should 
 thus repulse a lady, whose only object in request- 
 ing an interview was to set herself right in his good 
 opinion, I could not have believed. A Bishop is en- 
 treated by an old friend, and the daughter of an old 
 friend and parish priest, by one who had been, by the 
 confession of all, spending and being spent for the benefit 
 of the Diocese, to grant her half an hour's interview in 
 order to clear herself from what she feels to be a cruel 
 calumny. That Bishop has already acted on the strength 
 of the calumny ; but when requested to allow an answer 
 to it, replies by his servant, and replies as I have just 
 stated. 
 
 Further, she received, on her return home, a letter 
 from your Lordship, expressing still more strongly the 
 same refusal of allowing us to clear ourselves. That 
 letter, not having received your Lordship's permission 
 to publish, I cannot give, the reply to it I insert in the 
 Appendix. See Letters 3 and 4. 
 
 That which your Lordship would not allow to be laid 
 before you in private, must therefore now be laid before 
 you in public. For the scandal which must inevitably 
 follow, for the wounded feelings of those whom — httle 
 regard as they have paid to our own feelings — I would 
 fain have spared, I am not responsible. The least atten- 
 tion, the slightest act of justice, on your Lordship's part, 
 would have obviated this most painful necessity. I have 
 now only to state the exact and simple truth, and to 
 leave the issue in the Hands of God. 
 
 But I must once more declare, and that most solemnly, 
 that the task I undertake is the most painful I ever had 
 to perform. The tissue of misrepresentations with 
 which the case has been surrounded, cannot be swept 
 away without occasioning unhappiness to those whom, 
 for our dear Sister's sake, I would, were it possible, have 
 shielded. But, as I shall presently have occasion to 
 relate, she desired, while with us, that the truth should 
 be spoken when it became necessary, at any cost ; and 
 I am sure she cannot less desire it now, when her appre- 
 ciation of truth must be so far more perfect.
 
 6 
 
 It was in the Autumn of 1854 that I was informed 
 by a friend of our late Sister's that she was in great 
 distress of mind, and was exceedingly anxious to obtain 
 the assistance of some priest; and that, from having 
 read some of my books, she wished, if it were possible, 
 to see me. I thus heard a part, but only a part, of 
 her troubles; but enough to convince me that her 
 mind, if she were left to herself, might be unequal 
 to the wear and tear of continual suffering ; and that, if 
 the support to which she had a right were denied her in 
 the English, she might probably seek it in the Roman, 
 Church. 
 
 Of the causes which led to this desire on her part, 
 the following account has been given me by a lady with 
 whom she was intimately acquainted : — 
 
 " In the year 1853 Mrs. Scobell asked me if I could give 
 her daughter a few singing lessons; that she could not 
 take many, as the expense must be defrayed from her own 
 means, which were small. I soon saw poor Miss Scobell 
 was labouring under great mental depression ; knowing the 
 solace of good music, I oflFered, as an act of sympathy, to 
 give her as much of my time as I could spare, and the re- 
 laxation certainly did her good Before I left * * * * 
 
 in July she asked if she might tell me her grief, and begged 
 I would correspond and help her. She then told me the 
 gay life her sisters led at home, making no complaints of 
 them, but merely stating how distasteful the life was to her, 
 and wishing her father would allow her to visit the poor and 
 teach the young in his large parish ; she also told me she 
 could never go to church but on Sundays ; could rarely com- 
 municate, and what a pleasure and comfort the frequent Ad- 
 ministration and Daily Services here were to her. I saw 
 a letter (gentle and loving) to her father before she returned 
 home, merely begging she might go to a district church 
 Wednesdays and Fridays, and not go to parties and balls. I 
 also saw the answer, in which her father did not even address 
 her as his child, but began ' Emily,' and to the best of my 
 memory it ran thus : ' I make no comment on your letter : 
 there is but one rule in my house ; you must do as your 
 sisters do as long as you abide in it.' .... In August I 
 received a letter, saying that my letters were opened by her 
 father before given to her; we then agreed to write but 
 seldom. At a later date she wrote in great sorrow, saying her 
 father had, under fear, extorted a promise from her not to see
 
 or write to any person holding high church views, or use books 
 inculcating those views. Her mental journal, intended for 
 God's eye only, was taken and read before her family, a cross 
 on her table broken to pieces, no room allowed her for private 
 prayer, or retirement, her only possibility of praying being to 
 rise late at night, when others were asleep. Going to balls 
 
 was a great trial to her also, she said That promise 
 
 preyed upon her mind : she resolved to break it : and deter- 
 mined to go to Mr. Gresley for advice, which her father pre- 
 vented by forbidding her to go that side of Brighton or to 
 S. Paul's Church. Her loneliness seemed to prey on her so 
 much, that I feared she would leave our branch of the 
 Church, and I was thankful when God graciously led you to 
 her : from that time her letters were so calm and different." 
 
 From this plain, straightforward account, my Lord, 
 you will see how untrue it is that I sought our Sister 
 out : the fact being that, but for her father's denunciation 
 of another priest, she would never have come to me at 
 all. The account here given of her private memoranda 
 being taken away and publicly read, I, as well as others 
 of her friends, whose names for obvious reasons I sup- 
 press, have heard at more detail from her. The keys 
 which secured those memoranda, (her preparations for 
 Confession,) were only taken from her by her father 
 after locking the door of her own room, and after a 
 struggle by main force. 
 
 Had it been a matter of choice, I would far rather 
 that she had sought the assistance of some other priest : 
 not only because he might have helped her so much 
 more effectually than myself, but also because my own 
 hands were full of business, and the case in question 
 was likely to occasion a good deal of anxiety. But still 
 I felt that, by the plain and express rule of the Prayer 
 Book, if she wished it, she had a right to consult 
 me ; that the English Church not only allows, but in- 
 vites, those whose consciences are burdened to come to 
 any priest whatever, expressly and definitively abrogating 
 all necessity of consulting their parish priest. While 
 the Prayer Book stands as it does, my duty was clear ; 
 a duty, I confess, undertaken with reluctance, and only 
 undertaken because I felt that it could not be omitted 
 without sin. Aware as I was partly of the peculiar cir-
 
 8 
 
 cumstances of the case, I took such advice as I was able 
 to procure, and more especially among the clergy of this 
 Diocese : and, notwithstanding the painful results which 
 it has involved, I am truly thankful that I followed it. 
 
 Thus, however, I wrote to the friend by whom the 
 case was first mentioned to me : 
 
 "January \Oth, 1855. 
 
 " I will, most gladly, do anything in my power to help 
 Miss Scobell. But I must know more about her first, — what 
 she really wants, — how old she is, — the exact position of 
 affairs between her and her father, — whether some other 
 Priest might not be able to help her better, — and so forth. 
 
 " I can see no easier way than that she should write to me. 
 You understand perfectly that I would not allow her to keep 
 up a correspondence without her father's knowledge : but, if 
 she likes to write once, as distinctly and unreservedly as she 
 can, I will answer her letter, and tell her what I think she 
 ought to do. Her age you can tell me : and that I should 
 like to know first." 
 
 The question about her age having been answered — 
 she was then 27 — I went to Lewes on the 15th of 
 February, 1855, expecting, so far as I can now remem- 
 ber, to see our Sister at the house of this friend. I 
 found, on arriving, that it was not to be so ; that the 
 place where she wished to see me was the Infant 
 School-room of S. Mary's, and there accordingly I was 
 introduced to her. The conversation which followed, 
 joined to the account I had already received, made me 
 acquainted with some of the true features of the case. 
 What was I to do ? Was I to hear of such ill-treat- 
 ment as that of which you will presently read, so many 
 years of patient suffering, sorrow so long continued that, 
 to use her own expression in one of her letters, she had 
 almost forgotten when she had been happy, and not 
 give her leave to tell me all? — a permission which, 
 by simply opening her Prayer Book, she might have 
 demanded, and which I should have felt disgraced to 
 the end of my life if I had refused ? Was I to give 
 her no advice as to what her duties were, under circum- 
 stances so very painful, and I earnestly trust, so very un- 
 common? Dishonourable conduct I This, indeed, would 
 have been dishonourable: — if I had left her to her misery,
 
 9 
 
 if I had troubled myself to consider what the world 
 would say, if I had " passed by on the other side !" I pray 
 that I may never be called to so painful a scene again : 
 but if I am, what I did then, I would do once more, 
 though I could foresee all the outcry that would be 
 raised against the act. It is enough for me to know 
 that from that hour her life became happier, — her mind 
 began to resume its usual tone ; and though her trials 
 were still heavy, she was not overwhelmed and weighed 
 down by them as previously. I am much mistaken, my 
 Lord, if you yourself, under similar circumstances, 
 would have repulsed her. The kindness of your heart 
 would have spoken more powerfully on the one side, 
 than the fear of possible consequences could have 
 clamoured on the other. 
 
 Did I then think that it was possible that such a state 
 of things should continue ? Certainly not. In the con- 
 versation that ensued, after she had made her confes- 
 sion, I asked her to allow me at once to call on her 
 father, and to tell him what had been done. But, broken- 
 spirited as she was, she shrank from the very idea. I 
 did not know, she said, what I was desirous of doing ; 
 I was not aware of his ungoverned temper ; the very an- 
 nouncement might lead to some act of personal violence 
 on his part. Very unwillingly, (for I knew it was the 
 best course,) but necessarily, (for I had no right to force 
 it upon her) I gave up the design. I was obliged, there- 
 fore, to content myself with her promise that, within a 
 week, she would herself choose her own opportunity, 
 and tell her father. 
 
 I wish, most heartily, that she had done so ; but 
 with the unkhidness against which she had to contend, 
 with her crushed spirit, and excessive fear of her father's 
 violence, I cannot much wonder that she failed in keep- 
 ing it. Her mother's death, which occurred shortly 
 afterwards, occasioned another difficulty ; and she put 
 off from day to day what, had she taken my advice, she 
 would have done at once. 
 
 And now what was the continual tenour of what I 
 said to her ? Let these extracts from my own letters 
 answer the question. The first, written before I had seen 
 her ; the others, as their dates will show, afterwards :
 
 10 
 
 *' January 2\$t, 1855. 
 " I should advise you to act thus. To tell your father 
 (perhaps it would be better to write it) that, while you shall 
 always be reaily to go to the very furthest length you can in 
 obeying him, there are some points on which you feel that you 
 have a higher duty. That you feel that you need that counsel 
 from a priest, and that absolution which the Church clearly 
 allows you to have ; that you intend, however painful it must 
 be to disobey him, to avail yourself of it : that you are will- 
 ing to do it as quietly and as seldom as possible, in order to 
 hurt his feelings as little as you may — that you cannot con- 
 sent to be debarred, as a principle, from going to church on 
 the week-day," (that is on Wednesday and Friday) " though 
 perfectly ready at any time to give up going when any home 
 duties stand in the way : and that you cannot agree to 
 have the letters which you may write to whatever priest you 
 consult, or he to you, opened." 
 
 "February \6th, 1865. 
 "What I am most anxious for the future is that every- 
 thing you do should be done openly, and without need of 
 concealment: and that must depend on your perfect truth 
 and frankness now." 
 
 " February 22nd, 1855. 
 " I cannot feel happy about the state in which matters 
 stand as regards your father. It is a sad necessity, (if it be 
 a necessity) for me to write, as this letter must be sent, under 
 
 cover, to a third person You will not be taking the 
 
 highest Christian path, while matters stand in their present 
 state. You will not be showing that perfect frankness and 
 candour, and boldness for the truth, which we ought to 
 show one to another. Count the cost before you do any- 
 thing of this kind : but rely upon it, whatever happens, you 
 will be easier and happier when the whole truth is known. I 
 do not advise this without knowing all the circumstances ; 
 those which I do not wonder, that you, as a daughter, were 
 unwilling to tell me, as well as those which you did." 
 
 " November 27th, 1855. 
 *' This kind of correspondence ought not to go on, because 
 it is in your power to end it. Only be firm now, only insist 
 on an answer, and one way or the other it will be terminated. 
 I never direct to you under cover to Miss Parker, without 
 pain." 
 
 *' December 6th, 1855. 
 " How long do you mean to continue to waver ? Either
 
 il 
 
 make up your mind to what you know to be right .... or 
 at once make it up that the old state of things must con- 
 tinue. In this latter ease, I should like to have one Une to 
 say that it is so, and after that I can do nothing but pray for 
 you." 
 
 " January 23rd, 1856. 
 " So long as I can hope that anything I can say can have 
 any influence with you, so long I shall never cease urging 
 you not to rest till you have as free leave to confess as 
 to enjoy any other privilege of the Church." 
 
 While on the subject of my own letters, I would just 
 remind you of Mr. Scobell's assertion, that my letters to 
 his daughter, "written undercover to Miss Parker," i.e., 
 while she was at home, amounted to several hundreds. 
 Now she was at home, after I became acquainted with 
 her, for not much more than a year. A few hours before 
 her death she gave me a packet containing very nearly 
 all that I had ever written to her : their number 
 amounts to thirty-three. Observe the difference. Mr. 
 Scobell asserts that I had written hundreds of letters 
 within something more than a year; the truth being 
 that, in nearly three years, I had written about forty. 
 
 It will now be necessary that I should mention what 
 her own sufferings were, while she was thus hving at 
 home. I cannot do so better than by the following ex- 
 tracts of letters from herself. With how great repug- 
 nance I insert them here, all the friends whom I have 
 consulted on the subject, can bear witness. Nor could 
 any representations of theirs have induced me to publish 
 them in this place, had I not, so far as the thing is 
 possible, the writer's own leave for so doing. For when 
 her father had written to me, (of which more presently), 
 and she thought it possible that he might appeal to 
 your Lordship, — she told me to make what use I pleased 
 of her letters ; or, if I had rather, said that she would 
 herself request an interview with your Lordship, and 
 state all the truth. 
 
 But, my Lord, before you proceed to peruse them, I 
 must request you to bear in mind that, subsequently to 
 her death, Mr. Scobell declared to myself and my co- 
 executor, as he has done to others, that he and his
 
 12 
 
 daughter had lived together in the most perfect har- 
 mony. 
 
 And the first shall be from her letters to the lady to 
 whom I have already referred : — 
 
 " There was that promise continually on my mind, and 
 such a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness, that I hardly 
 dared acknowledge to myself. To get stronger I went 
 amongst the poor ; there is plenty to do if one might, but my 
 going is a great grievance at home ; but I never let the in- 
 terests of others (which at home are called my own selfish 
 plans) interfere with any home calls, though it is hard to 
 think this right always. It seems as if nothing I can do will 
 please, though I do not think it right to give up trying on 
 that account. ... It was insisted that I should again renew 
 that promise, and miserably weak as it was, I was obliged to 
 give a kind of half promise. I then felt there was but one thing 
 to do, which was to propose to leave home. I asked to be al- 
 lowed to join in some work. I did not ask to join a Sister- 
 hood, I knew that would be refused, but this also was refused. 
 Part of my answer was that, ' All hopes of redeeming me, or 
 hoping I should live as I ought, were given up, that papa sup- 
 posed 1 must follow my own course.' It was altogether very 
 trying. However, I feel free from the promise. If I was to 
 follow my own course, papa knew what that course was. 
 Come what will, it is no possible good for me either to write 
 or speak to papa on the subject ; he only returns my letters 
 unopened, or if I speak will not listen. Another thing 
 troubles me much. I expect every time I return from visit- 
 ing that too will be forbidden. In that case what am I to 
 do ? It is little I do, but that would be missed. I am sorry 
 to say that no one besides myself goes into the parishes ; 
 there are three thousand people, of course many poor. Two 
 schools, a large national school with three hundred children, 
 and an infant school with eighty. I go on Sundays and as 
 often as I can in the week. Some of the people are leading 
 frightfully immoral lives, and I go to them and do what I 
 can. In everything I have begun, I have been able to do 
 more than I dared hope. ... I find many children growing 
 quite up not baptized. . . . Three were baptized in one fa- 
 mily last Sunday, and I had been trying three months to per- 
 suade them. Apart from feeling, Is it right in obedience to 
 an earthly parent to neglect these duties ? I do not know. 
 I believe I know nothing, and then he is a clergyman. It 
 often seems it would be easier if it were not for that. Every 
 duty seems opposed to another duty. It is not really so ; 
 but it appears so, and it is to set this straight I want so
 
 13 
 
 much help. Where it is to come from is utterly beyond my 
 comprehension. You would say from the Church ; but there 
 is left only part of the Sunday services here ; no advice to be 
 got from any one. If you can understand me, I am afraid to 
 live because of the responsibility of life. It does seem the 
 Roman Catholic Church never leaves any one in so lonely a 
 state as mine." 
 
 And now the following are from her letters to my- 
 self:— 
 
 "January 23rd, 1856. 
 " In my last letter I told you I had been very unhappy, 
 
 but I did not tell you the cause For a time all seemed 
 
 much better ; but now it is as if my father was not my father. 
 .... He does not seem to care whom he makes acquainted 
 with my most private hopes and actions, which were only 
 spoken of to him at all because, as being my parent, I was 
 
 obliged to do so And they were till now so carefully 
 
 hidden from everyone The letters and requests I 
 
 wrote to my father were to him and for him alone ; if it has 
 all, so to speak, been made public, it is without my desiring 
 it I have no hope now of any change of circum- 
 stances for the better as to this world." 
 
 "April 27th, 1856. 
 " You were kind to me when scarcely any one was, and 
 
 you are so stijl You have given me, so to speak, a 
 
 second life, in which I do not feel that all the desires and 
 energies of my existence are despised as absurd or useless. 
 It is so long since I have felt happy that I can scarcely 
 remember when it was, but I know well that the peace at 
 present I am allowed to feel may go away again, and I dread 
 its being taken away very much." 
 
 " September 20th, 1856. 
 " My home-life does not improve, but gets worse : what 
 it will come to, or be the end of it, I cannot think ; it gives 
 me, especially at times, very great grief; — but, nevertheless 
 in myself 1 am happy ; far happier than I have been for 
 many years. It is to you, humanly speaking, to whom alone 
 I have to be grateful for peace which had so long been 
 
 strange to me I have been very strongly persuaded 
 
 by some to be away from home as much as possible ; but I 
 cannot make up my own mind that this would be right. I 
 do not mean that I should feel it wrong at all to be away 
 sometimes, but only if I were to make it a system to be away 
 as much as possible for the sake of being away."
 
 14 
 
 " November 8th, 1856. 
 " I can tell you now that I have not one single unkind 
 feeling towards my father ; I am the more sure of this 
 as I have been very much tried since 1 saw you. Were 
 it not so, the fearful things that have been said to me, and 
 unkind things that have been done, must have aroused them : 
 but I have felt nothing but the deepest sorrow for him, and I 
 have not had to forgive him, as I have not taken offence." 
 
 To her Father.^ 
 
 " November 26th, 1856. 
 
 "Why is it I should be the only one in the world to 
 whom you are always so very unkind ? I am the same as 
 other people, and have the same hopes and feelings, and 
 you know I must be very anxious ; any one would be. You 
 would be, were you, so to speak, beginning life, and waiting 
 for consent as to the course of your life. Do not think I 
 bear any resentment towards you for anything, for I do not 
 
 at all Do not think I shall speak of anything that 
 
 troubles me to any one at * * * * * any more than I have 
 done here : I do not wish to make the slightest division 
 between any, but all I can to draw every one closer together 
 in love." 
 
 " March I6th, 185/. 
 
 " It may be, which I do not think impossible, that my fa- 
 ther's anger will show itself in separating himself entirely 
 from me. He said, some time ago, if I continued steadfast," 
 (that is in her wish to become a Sister) " he would no longer 
 own me as his child ... I wrote to my father about a week 
 
 ago I said it was impossible I could consult him on 
 
 what troubled me, as it was the way in which he treated me 
 that caused me to do as 1 had, and that especially the pro- 
 mises he had caused me to make against my conscience, 
 caused me to see the necessity for doing so. That you had 
 not unduly in any way influenced me ; and that it has ever 
 been your desire that I should both feel and act towards 
 him as I ought to do. . . . And I also hoped that he 
 would never again ask or wish me to do anything I felt to be 
 wrong." 
 
 And now, my Lord, I particularly request your atten- 
 tion to the following letter : — 
 
 " April, 1857. 
 ** However much I may have suffered from my father, the 
 
 i Of this letter to her Father, a copy was sent to me subse- 
 quently.
 
 15 
 
 remembrance of what my mother suffered, comes between 
 myself and my father more than anything. If 1 tell you all 
 I think and know on this subject, I must tell you dreadful 
 things. ... He was of an overbearing and violent tem- 
 perament, to which most completely he has given way. Ke 
 cannot bear, not to say the least contradiction, but the 
 slightest variation from his will, from anyone, far less from 
 either his wife or children. ... If she ever did oppose 
 my father, such scenes occurred as it can be no duty of mine 
 to speak of. . . . She had no friend in these things, she 
 wou'.d never have one; excepting when in the end she felt 
 she was dying from their eflfects, she would talk to me, for 
 she could no longer help it, . . . To tell you what I 
 felt all this time must be impossible ; I understood and saw 
 
 all, and yet I was alone I feel, perhaps, I ought to 
 
 have done more for my mother in some way, and I dwell 
 on her life and death till I can scarcely bear it. And now 
 my own position is not better than hers was; in some 
 ways, certainly far worse. I believe the verv sight of me, 
 by recalling the past to my father's recollection, is more 
 than he can endure : he feels that I know and understand 
 
 everything And the worse he treats me the worse 
 
 he will. For I believe it is easier to feel that one is en- 
 during wrong with patience, than to know and feel that 
 one is doing wrong. My position with regard to my leav- 
 ing home is this: that my father will go on so unenduringly 
 till I shall be forced to leave my home ; but he will not give 
 his consent to my doing so ; because, in the first place, he 
 would then be obhged to help me; and in the second place, 
 he would not be able to make my going appear to be entirely 
 my fault, and lay on me all the blame of everything, as he 
 will do if he can. And as far as the things of this world go, 
 it might lead to rather serious consequences, for it is very 
 uncertain, at least to my mind, if my father ever does any- 
 thing for me in any way. His behaviour to me is beyond 
 anything one could imagine or scarcely believe. There is no 
 moment of the day I can feel in any degree safe from his an- 
 ger ; and the states of anger he goes into are truly awful : 
 there have been times in which 1 have feared even for my 
 life. He seems as if he did not know at all what he was 
 about. But that he can have self-control I am sure, because 
 should anyone come into the room who he does not wish 
 should see him thus, one moment he is as calm as 'if nothing 
 were happening, and when we are alone again, he will go on 
 again as badly as ever. I think sometimes perhaps he goes be- 
 yond himself, but I am not sure. He terrifies everyone; and 
 though I am so also, I am less frightened than anyone else. 
 Weak and wavering as I have been, I am the first who has
 
 16 
 
 dared to withstand him at all .... I am staying at present 
 with a cousin. She knows my father very well, and knows 
 all about it ; and she urges me most strongly to write or else 
 go to my uncle on the subject. She says she does not think 
 it is right that I should be forced to go away from my family 
 bearing all the blame, and being so entirely misunderstood as 
 my father takes care I shall be. I feel very much inclined 
 to do this ; indeed, the only reason that has ever prevented 
 my doing it Imig ago was that they are brothers, and I am 
 almost sure that they would no longer remain friends, and it 
 is a dreadful thing to separate them for my sake. I cannot 
 be sure this would follow, but it might : at least I should in- 
 jure my father in his opinion. . . Even my sister wrote to 
 me the other day and said, much as for her own sake she wished 
 me home, yet she advised me to stay away as long as I could. 
 . . I believe that from some unexplainable reason, my father 
 hates me : he will not, (though he prevents my sitting at the 
 head of the table, and if ever I am there only tells me that he 
 cannot endure to see me, and often sits at the side himself be- 
 cause he says he hates the sight of me opposite to him,) let me 
 sit near him at the table, but told me it was so exceedingly dis- 
 agreeable to him that I should be near him at all, and that I 
 really must sit at that corner of the table where he could 
 least see me. . . No one can stay in our house two days, 
 or even one, without seeing the truth of all and far more 
 than I have written." 
 
 Let us see now what is the true history of these sad 
 proceedings. 
 
 A daughter is rendered miserable in her home by 
 the unkindness of her father ; her most private memo- 
 randa are exposed to the whole family ; her letters are 
 opened ; she is forbidden to seek any counsel or comfort 
 but from the parent who is thus wronging her. Her 
 relations tell her that it is impossible for her to live at 
 home ; urge different plans on her for her future resi- 
 dence. She determines to bear everything as long as 
 she possibly can ; endeavours to put up with all her 
 father's unkindness ; and only when she finds that her 
 home life would certainly endanger her mental powers, 
 and perhaps even more than that, she makes up her 
 mind that another asylum is necessary for her. Ac- 
 quainted as I was with all these circumstances, what 
 was I to do ? Was I to leave her without such help 
 and comfort as I might be able to give, or to use the
 
 17 
 
 only means which lay open to me of helping her at all ? 
 There is nothing easier than to condemn in a case like 
 this. I, for one, wish that she could have had courage 
 to have told everything to her father from the very 
 first. But I dare not blame her, knowing the immedi- 
 ate violence to which she would have exposed herself, 
 and the certain increase of unkindness which would 
 have followed. From me, as she says herself, her only 
 comfort at that time came ; and while trying to lead her 
 to the open declaration which I wished her to make, 
 how could I leave her to the suffering and trial which I 
 knew was her daily portion ? And let it be remembered 
 that it is not as if I had been called to deal with a child. 
 If by the law of England she were of full legal capacity 
 six years previously, might have married, might have 
 made a will without the consent or even knowledge of 
 her parents, was she to be considered incompetent, with- 
 out the same consent, to choose what priest she would 
 to assist her ? 
 
 Twice, and twice only^ at her own earnest request, 
 and when she was almost pressed down by new unkiud- 
 nesses and new trials, I saw her at Lewes. As to what 
 passed on those occasions, my lips are sealed ; except 
 thus far : that, on bidding her good-bye, on the last of 
 them, I told her that, whatever might be the need, I 
 could not see her there again ; that she had relations 
 enough who would be glad to receive her, and where 
 her intercourse might be perfectly free ; and that, as 
 she was now about to leave home, I trusted that, before 
 her return, she would have been able to make some 
 arrangement which should preclude the necessity of any- 
 thing being done without her father's knowledge. Shortly 
 after this, in the November of 1856, she left Lewes for 
 the last time, on a visit to friends in Devonshire and 
 Cornwall. 
 
 I have already observed that my acquaintance with 
 her commenced in February, 1855 ; so that I had only 
 known her two years and three quarters at the time of 
 her death. Of that period, the last year was spent 
 away from home ; and out of the remaining time, at 
 least eight or nine months must in like manner have 
 been passed in visits. During the whole of that period.
 
 18 
 
 she was as free to correspond with anyone whom she 
 chose as I myself was ; and in the time actually spent 
 at home I never wrote to her hut when she had some 
 fresh difficulty or sorrow to tell me ; and seldom, as your 
 Lordship may judge from the extracts from my owq 
 letters that I have given you, without urging her, in 
 spite of whatever she might suffer from her father, to 
 tell him all. 
 
 At length — but I scarcely know to what extent — she 
 told her father. And afterwards she was so much 
 from home, that her former difficulties were very much 
 diminished, and indeed took a different form. In the 
 February of the present year I received this letter from 
 Mr. Scobell, which he has already printed. 
 
 ^^ February, 1857. 
 
 " Sir, — I have not been precipitate. I have surmised a 
 long time, with a strong degree of certainty, your practices 
 personal and injurious to myself, and I have used forbearance 
 towards you. There have been lately disclosed and proved 
 to me confirmatory facts on which 1 can depend,, and more 
 than a parent and clergyman ought in silence to put up with ; 
 and I ask you what is your explanation of the following cir- 
 cumstances ; and, as I and you may fairly call them accu- 
 sations ? — 
 
 " 1st, That you have been carrying on by letter, under 
 cover to the Mistress of my Infants' School, a clandestine 
 correspondence with my eldest daughter while in my house. 
 
 " 2nd. That you hold clandestine and secret meetings with 
 her, of some hours' duration, in the private apartments of 
 my Infants' School House, situate in my parish of All Saints, 
 Lewes. 
 
 " 3rd. That you there usurp, dishonourably and unlaw- 
 fully, the office of parish priest of All Saints, Lewes : wearing 
 a surplice ; exercising Liturgical offices : receiving confession 
 and pronouncing absolution. 
 
 " 4th. That you assume to yourself, and allow yourself to 
 be viewed by my daughter and parishioner in the character of 
 her spiritual guide and adviser, to my detriment as her natu- 
 ral parent and lawful parish priest ; that you receive in that 
 character, at her hands, the letters of me, her father, for 
 your perusal ; that you animadvert, and dictate how they shall 
 be replied to — how far compHed with — how far resisted. 
 
 " 5th. That you seek to hold and keep up a lasting spiritual 
 influence over my daughter living in my house. That you 
 seek to guide her future course of life. That your advice is
 
 19 
 
 to her, that she quit my house, that she persevere in demand- 
 ing my consent to so doing, and that she join and give her- 
 self, and whatever income and property she may have, to an 
 establishment at or near East Grinsted, or some other similar 
 establishment ; and, under your guidance and tutelage, there 
 to resign her will, her person, her services, her property, to 
 5'our or others' will and pleasure. 
 
 " 6th. That in the prosecution of these designs 5'ou have 
 never made one word of communication to me, her natural 
 parent, the guide of her youth, and constituted spiritual 
 pastor; that the whole is clandestinely and surreptitiously 
 carried on and continued now by letter during her absence 
 from home, to the injury of my family peace and to the 
 infringement of my public rights. 
 
 " I make these charges distinctly and deliberately, and I 
 ask for your distinct and deliberate answer. 
 
 *• I remain, yom- obedient servant, 
 
 " John Scobell. 
 
 " To the Rev. J. M. Neale, East Grinsted." 
 
 My reply was as follows : 
 
 " Sackville College, East Grinsted, 
 " February \2th, 185/. 
 " RavEREND Sir, — I beg leave to acknowledge the 
 receipt of your letter ; — but I decline replying to your ques- 
 tions, (though my silence is not to be taken as an acqui- 
 escence in the correctness of your statements.) 
 
 " I do so from reasons — as you will be convinced if you 
 should unhappily wish to bring the matter under notice in 
 any other quarter— of the most friendly character to yourself 
 personally. 
 
 " I remain. Reverend Sir, 
 
 "Your faithful servant, 
 
 "J. M. Neale." 
 
 I wished— for I could hardly say I expected — that 
 he would at once refer the matter to your Lordship. 
 But while his daughter lived he did not dare to do so. 
 From her own lips you would then have heard a far 
 more complete account of her sufferings, than I have 
 been able to give ; sufferings, which it was no part of 
 my duty to particularise to him ; and yet, the mention 
 of which would have been necessary in any longer letter 
 than that which I actually addressed to him. But why 
 did Mr. Scobell remain silent ? Why did he not bring
 
 20 
 
 the whole case before your Lordship during his daugh- 
 ter's Ufe-time? The answer to these questions is self- 
 evident. 
 
 It will now be proper that I should relate the part I 
 had in bringing her to S. Margaret's. 
 
 For many years before I became acquainted with her, 
 her mind was set on joining some sisterhood : indeed, 
 she was bent on the life of a Sister, before she knew that 
 it was attainable in the English Church. For some 
 time I did not even mention S. Margaret's to her ; and 
 when T did, it was only as a request that, before she 
 made up her mind when the time should come — if 
 ever it did come — what sisterhood she would join, she 
 would at all events take S. Margaret's into considera- 
 tion. In the November of 1855, she did make up her 
 mind that it would be better for her eventually to leave 
 home ; and that, at all events, she should like to reside 
 at S. Margaret's for a few months. Thereupon, openly 
 and frankly, she told her father ; he refused his per- 
 mission ; and addressed a letter to the Mother Supe- 
 rior, which he has himself inserted in his ** Statement." 
 By his own account theii, nothing could be more honest 
 or candid than the manner in which she first mentioned 
 her wish to join S. Margaret's. There the matter 
 rested. She was resolved to remain at home as long 
 as it was possible ; and it was not till the summer of 
 the present year that she felt it would be impossible. 
 She again and again wrote to obtain Mr. Scobell's leave 
 to pay a visit to East Grinsted. He says, "I felt it 
 my duty steadily to refuse." The fact is not so. She 
 wrote to him on November 18, 1856 : 
 
 "November I8th, 1856. 
 " If I wait till I am thirty I sliall have plenty of time to 
 change my mind if it will change, and as I have not avoided 
 the world, nor the things of the world, in any way hitherto, 
 neither will I ever do so while I remain amongst them : and 
 then, as you like best, I will go at once altogether, or go for 
 a short time, only to try if I am fitted, and do really desire 
 this life, as I believe now that I do. However weak or un- 
 steady my character may be, 1 have not been changeable 
 in this. Even when I was quite a child, I thought how much 
 I should like to devote my whole life entirely to the service of 
 God. I was at that time made very much of by every one, espe-
 
 21 
 
 cially by you, and I used often to be talked about in my hear- 
 ing, and especially of my illness, and I was often told by 
 strangers, 'that as my life was spared when every one had 
 thought I should die, I must use it very especially to His 
 service Who had given it to me, as it were, twice.' I knew 
 even then, that those who said this so often to me, did not 
 much mean what they were saying, and often because they 
 did not know exactly what to say on the subject, — because 
 they generally added, ' And I am sure you are doing so,' 
 when they could not be sure of any such thing, nor had I any 
 intention of doing so, much. But I used to dwell a good 
 deal on such words when I was alone. So that by the time 
 I was fifteen I had quite determined to find out some way 
 in which I might do so, when I shall be grown up, and from 
 that time this desire has never quite entirely left me. It has, 
 I know, been very hidden ; no one from my manner or dis- 
 position would have thought it ; and I always used to favour 
 this blinding of others to my real feelings, and used to feel 
 pleased it could be so; nor was it till six years ago, that 
 I really made up my mind that I would indeed do it, and 
 perhaps not even now, or ever, should I have had to break 
 through that feeling and have spoken of it, and asked your 
 consent, unless you had, so to speak, forced it out for your- 
 self as you did. 
 
 " I do ask you very seriously and in the spirit of the most 
 affectionate love, which wherever I am I shall always feel for 
 you, (and I sincerely wish you believed in this more than you 
 do,) that you will let me go. It will, I believe, be better for 
 all. And God, Who does not forget what we do to the 
 glory of His Name, will not forget that you have given one 
 of the children He gave to you, back to Him more especially 
 for His service." 
 
 She could not, as she constantly complains in her 
 letters to me, obtain any answer from him. Thus for 
 example she writes : — 
 
 " Christmas Day, 1856. 
 " I have heard nothing from my father ; it seems to me 
 sometimes that he is doing all that he can to make me go" 
 (that is to S. Margaret's) " without his consent ; and that he 
 would be best pleased if I were to do so." 
 
 "February lOth, 1857. 
 
 " The time I fixed with my father is gone, and I have not 
 
 heard from him on the subject at all. ... I heard after 
 
 fourteen months' silence from my father the other day, but 
 
 he did not mention this subject at all. It was a letter which 
 
 b3
 
 22 
 
 gave me much pain ; so utterly cold it was, as if he were 
 writing to an utter stranger. It was purely on money busi- 
 ness, and he could not have written diflferently had he been 
 writing to his lawyer." 
 
 She at length fixed a day by which, if she did not 
 hear from him, she should assume his consent. The 
 day passed, and no answer stilL At last, just before 
 the time at which she had finally made up her mind to 
 come to East Grinsted — and long after the day she had 
 fixed had passed — came a letter of absolute refusal. 
 She again earnestly requested his permission. To this 
 letter no reply was returned ; and, as she was subse- 
 quently informed, he had never even opened it. 
 
 In the meantime, though I felt, what many of her re- 
 lations saw, that to reside at home was impossible for 
 her, I was unwilling to take upon myself the responsibihty 
 of advising her to act in direct opposition to her father's 
 will. With her permission, therefore, I laid the whole 
 case before an eminent Divine of high position in our 
 Communion ; and after hearing what she had suffered 
 at home, and more especially the paroxysms of anger to 
 which even her presence seemed sometimes to excite her 
 father, he decided without any hesitation, that she ought 
 not to return, at least at present ; and that, her desire 
 having always been for a Sister's life, the way seemed 
 now opened for her making trial of it. It was his an- 
 swer and not mine which finally decided her. She came 
 to S. Margaret's, as Mr. Scobell relates, in the August 
 of the present year. The only change made in her in- 
 tention about remaining was that, instead of staying 
 merely till Christmas, she promised to remain till 
 Easter, with the understanding that, if her father would 
 receive her, she was to spend the interval between 
 Christmas and Lent, at home. And now begins a se- 
 cond series of mis-statements in Mr. Scobell's letter, 
 which, painful and wearisome as the task is, I will 
 point out one by one : simply marking his words in 
 italics. 
 
 Abandoning the name of her baptism. From motives 
 of convenience, there having been Sisters already of 
 her names Emily and Ann and Elizabeth, she assumed 
 an abbreviation of the first of them ; but no more
 
 23 
 
 abandoned it than does the lady who is called Fanny 
 instead of Frances, or Georgy instead of Georgina, In- 
 deed, one of the rules for S. Margaret's of which your 
 Lordship approved, a rule, I believe, which exists in all 
 English Sisterhoods, is that the Sisters shall retain 
 their own baptismal names. And Mr. Scobell is the 
 more inexcusable for this mis-statement, because in the 
 very letter to which he alludes, his daughter reminded 
 him that she was not changing her name. 
 
 Fever had been there : it fell upon her. Would not 
 anyone think that our Sister had been brought into an 
 infected house ; and in consequence had taken the infec- 
 tion ? Fever had been at S. Margaret's, but not since 
 the preceding January. The house had been thoroughly 
 purified, had been left empty for three weeks ; and had 
 received, under medical authority, during the course of 
 the summer, invalids from a London Hospital for change 
 of air. Our Sister came to S. Margaret's on the 15th 
 of xlugust ; it was not till the 10th of September that 
 one of the Sisters was called to attend a case of scarlet 
 fever. Before this, when that disease was raging in 
 East Grinsted, I told her that we should probably be 
 brought into contact with it, and asked her if she 
 would wish to take her lot with the others, or to be 
 shielded from it as she should be if she chose. Her 
 reply was that she would not have any difference made 
 for herself. 
 
 / immediately repaired to her sick bed, and had an 
 interview with her, offering her such consolation as the 
 affection of a father could suggest. That one visit, the 
 single act of kindness she had received from him for 
 many months, was felt deeply by her. 
 
 And now comes what I must consider the most cruel 
 of all Mr. Scobell's mis-statements, as well as perhaps 
 the most untrue ; that he was purposely kept in igno- 
 rance of her condition, till it was too late for him to see 
 her. / sought her medical attendant, whom I charged 
 to apprise me should any serious change in her condition 
 appear. He did so in about a fortnight afterwards. 
 The best medical skill in Brighton thereupon sent by 
 me, pronounced for the time an absence of danger. It 
 was not so. The physician alluded to considered her in
 
 24 
 
 a most precarious state, although not in danger of iro- 
 mediatelj sinking. I will return to what Mr. Scobell 
 now says about her will presently. 
 
 " She was sinking for several days previous to Thursday, 
 the 12tb, when all hope must have ceased. Why were we 
 not summoned? At nine at night she is pronounced dying 
 — still no message. At half-past five next morning a letter, 
 which must needs travel slowly, is sent by train; at eight a 
 telegraph. They both reach Lewes after nine. At half-past 
 eight she had made her will. These messages reached us at 
 Brighton by a servant on horseback at eleven. We were at 
 East Grinsted at 3.30 ; at 2.10 she had died. We saw her 
 loved remains, and descended from the chamber of death," 
 
 Now, my Lord, if Mr. Scobell can venture so many 
 mis-statements on points of fact, where he can be followed 
 step by step and refuted with undeniable accuracy, what 
 may we gather of his former mis-statements on questions, 
 where such demonstrative refutation is impossible ? 
 
 Up to Thursday the 12th, there had been no appre- 
 ciable change in our Sister's condition : she lay in an 
 exceedingly precarious state, but her medical attendant 
 still entertained hopes of her recovery. Her father was 
 kept informed by three among us of her state. On 
 the Thursday afternoon, although she then appeared 
 no worse, a letter was written to her sister, at Lewes, 
 urging her to pay a visit to S. Margaret's. I was to 
 see her at seven that evening : and then, and not till 
 then, did the change, which afterwards proved the fatal 
 change, begin. A paroxysm of suffocation came on, 
 which we at first thought might pass as it had done in 
 previous instances : her medical attendant was sent 
 for and administered the remedies he thought pro- 
 per. Certainly by the time that we became aware of 
 her imminent danger, it must have been from half-past 
 eight till nine. The telegraph closes at eight : the last 
 train then started at 8.10, and did not go to Lewes. 
 The only possible way in which I could have commu- 
 nicated with her father was by sending a man on horse- 
 back across the country. This I thought of doing : but 
 she was now sinking so rapidly that there seemed no
 
 25 
 
 reasonable possibility of her living during the six or 
 seven hours that the going and returning must, to say 
 the very least, have taken. In the night, she raUied 
 considerably. And now notice how, out of an over- 
 precaution of my own, Mr. Scobell (and he might have 
 known the truth if he would) builds up a charge of 
 negligence. He says that I first despatched a parcel, 
 and then, some time after, a telegraphic message : and 
 insinuates, to say the very least, that this was done in 
 order that he might not be present when the will of our 
 poor Sister was made. The first train leaves at 6.55 in 
 the morning, and is due at Lewes at 8.20. The tele- 
 graph does not open till 8. Uncertain which of the two 
 messages might reach Mr. Scobell first, I despatched a 
 parcel at 6.55, and the telegraphic message at the very 
 earliest possible moment. More : that one second 
 might not be lost, the telegraphic despatch was sent by 
 train to Three Bridges, in order to be there when the 
 telegraph should open, and thus to save the few minutes 
 which would be taken up by the double transmission 
 from this station. 
 
 And by whose fault then was it, that he was not in 
 time to see his daughter once more ? Simply and solely 
 by his own incredible and superlative apathy. He 
 knows his daughter to be lying in the most precarious 
 state : he goes quietly to Brighton without giving us his 
 address, or even mentioning that he is not at home : 
 neither are his letters forwarded daily. And then 
 he has the unmanly cruelty — without mentioning or 
 hinting a word of these things, — to turn round on 
 us who were straining every nerve to bring him in 
 time, and to charge us with negligence, and indeed 
 something a great deal worse, in the transmission of 
 intelligence. Even as it was, had he taken the pre- 
 caution of leaving word that a special message was to 
 be specially forwarded, he would have been in time. 
 We fully expected him at 11.30. I had a fly waiting 
 for him at the Station to effect the saving of a few 
 minutes. When it became certain that he would not 
 arrive, our dear Sister, with the greatest submission, 
 gave up her last earthly wish, and resigned herself to the
 
 26 
 
 most calm and beautiful death I ever saw, or probably 
 ever shall see. 
 
 I now proceed to the will. For the details of that 
 night are for our own comfort and example, not for a 
 letter like this. Mr. Scobell says : 
 
 *' Prior to her leaving the West of England she had ex- 
 pressed in confidence her fixed resolve that nothing through 
 life should tempt her to alienate her present or future pro- 
 perty. We know when this was overruled." 
 
 Of this determination not to leave any property from 
 her family, I never heard before ; and I do no injustice 
 to Mr. Scobell if I say that, without further evidence, I 
 shall not believe it now. Be that however as it may, 
 I never, directly or indirectly, mentioned the subject of 
 a will to our Sister : nor did 1 know whether she had any 
 property which she could bequeath, till, on either the 
 Tuesday or Wednesday, she expressed her desire to make 
 a will ; though, I am told, she had expressed the same 
 desire previously to the Sister who was attending her. 
 Now can anyone in their senses believe that, had we really 
 been anxious to secure any property for S. Margaret's, 
 we should not have seized the earliest opportunity of 
 pressing upon her the making this will ? All through 
 that last night, she, at intervals, wished that even now 
 she could do it ; and every time she did so — this can be 
 corroborated not only by the Sisters who were with her, 
 but more especially by her medical attendant, — I tried 
 to turn her thoughts to other things, wishing them not 
 to be engaged with earthly matters during the last hours 
 of her hfe. But when the medical man came in the 
 morning, he at once said, '* She had better be allowed 
 to make it — she is quite able to do so — it would be a 
 weight o£F her mind." A sohcitor was then sent for, 
 to whom she told her wishes, of which I had not the 
 remotest conception till he himself informed me of 
 them. The whole insinuation that I, or that any one, 
 interfered to influence her mind, contradicts itself. In 
 that case, why did we not procure the will at an earlier 
 period of her sickness ? or influence her to leave more 
 than a fraction of her property to the institution to 
 which she had given herself? No ; her principal reason
 
 27 
 
 for her anxious desire about the will was, as the event 
 showed, — not that she might leave a small portion of 
 her property to S. Margaret's, but that she might be- 
 queath the bulk of it — out of the natural order of 
 inheritance — to her younger brother, whose name was 
 frequently on her lips. She appointed the Mother Su- 
 perior of S. Margaret's and myself her co-executors. I 
 know not even now the amount of her property : I have 
 been told that it is between 365000 and ^66000 : to S. 
 Margaret's she left 36400. 
 
 I now pass on to the funeral itself. And here I can- 
 not give a more exact account of what really occurred, 
 than that which I wrote a few days after the event, and 
 which in its main facts no one has gainsaid. The points 
 which have been disputed, I will mention afterwards. 
 Our Sister had expressed two wishes with respect to her 
 funeral. The one was, that she should be buried in 
 what she herself would have called the most proper and 
 most Christian manner : that is, that the usual trap- 
 pings, plumes, and hearse, &c., should be dispensed 
 with, and that the arrangements should be such as they 
 actually were. They actually were : a white pall, 
 marked with a simple black cross,^ and the use of a 
 bier and " hearse ;" in fact, the identical method which 
 has retained its hold over many of the country parishes 
 in Devonshire. She also wished, but with a proviso, 
 more than once repeated, " If it were not very incon- 
 venient " — " If it could be done without trouble," to 
 be buried by her mother in the family vault at All 
 Saints. 
 
 On mentioning these wishes to her father on his arrival, 
 (which, as we have seen, did not take place till after her 
 death,) he immediately acquiesced in both, expressed his 
 willingness that she should be followed to the grave by 
 the other Sisters, and charged himself with all the 
 arrangements at Levres, including the preparations for 
 their reception ; he also engaged that the bearers should 
 be respectable and trustworthy men. Contrary to what 
 would have been our wish, and much to our inconve- 
 nience, he asked that the funeral might take place in 
 
 ^ It is scarcely worth while to mention that the interior angles 
 of this cross were filled up by small black Maltese crosses.
 
 28 
 
 the evening: it was therefore fixed for 5.30 p.m. On 
 our arriving at Levt^es the usual procession was formed, 
 i.e., — lest anything extraordinary should be thought to 
 have been attempted, — the bier preceded, myself and 
 the sisters followed ; the only thing beyond an ordinary 
 funeral being a wreath of white flowers carried by an 
 orphan child from S. Margaret's. The churchyard lies, 
 I should think, about a hundred yards from the station. 
 Before reaching it we were joined by Mr. Scobell himself, 
 and three members of his family, who proceeded to take 
 their places between ourselves and the bier. The Service 
 in the church was read by Mr. Hutchinson, of West 
 Firle ; the uproar, hooting, and yelhng, in the church- 
 yard, most evidently preconcerted, and that with con- 
 siderable skill, being already alarming. 
 
 With some difficulty we made our way to the vault ; 
 it is not attached to the Church, but is hollowed out 
 of a kind of bank on the north side of the Churchyard. 
 Mr. Hutchinson entered this vault, and the service was 
 there concluded ; the mob every moment growing fiercer 
 and more threatening. They made way however for 
 Mr. Scobell and his family, as well as for Mr. Hutchin- 
 son ; as the former was passing I stepped up to him and 
 said, " Mr. Scobell, you see how threatening the mob is, 
 will you not protect the Sisters ?" He bowed and 
 passed on ; and that, be it remembered, when his daugh- 
 ter had died in their arms only five days previously. 
 While this was passing the lights were either extin- 
 guished, or so flashed in our faces as to make a confusion 
 worse than darkness. There was a cry of " Do your 
 duty !" — " Now the performance is to come off!" and a 
 rush was immediately made upon us. But the strangest 
 part of all was, that men, certainly in the dress of gen- 
 tlemen, could stand by and see ladies dashed this way and 
 that, their veils dragged off, and their dresses torn, and, 
 far from rendering the least assistance, could actually 
 excite the dregs of the rabble to further violence. I 
 was myself knocked down ; and for a moment, while 
 under the feet of the mob, gave myself up for lost. We 
 were borne along into the street, — Mr. Scobell having 
 quietly gone home, and taking no further interest in the 
 matter. Some of the Sisters took refuge in the school-
 
 29 
 
 master's house ; some with myself, in a little public 
 house, called the King's Head. Round this Inn the 
 mob soon gathered, and were with great difficulty pre- 
 vented from breaking in. At last, by the advice of the 
 police, I made my way across gardens and over walls to 
 the Station ; a larger force having been now got toge- 
 ther were sent back with a fly to the King's Head, and 
 thus, after some hard fighting on their part, we were 
 enabled to return to East Grinsted by the next train, 
 the rabble besetting the Station to the very last. This 
 is a true account of what occurred ; I proceed to the 
 comments that have been made upon it. 
 
 Mr. Scobell has endeavoured to make it appear that, 
 on his arrival at East Grinsted, a hard and cruel alter- 
 native was put to him ; the burial of his daughter in a 
 way offensive to himself, or her interment elsewhere 
 than at Lewes. Anyone must see who is not wilfully 
 blind, that our duty was simply to carry out both of our 
 Sister's wishes, were that possible ; if not, then to re- 
 member that the one was an absolute desire ; the other 
 only, "if not inconvenient." According to Mr. Scobell's 
 account, my conduct was heartless in the extreme. The 
 facts were these. Afraid of the contagion of S. Mar- 
 garet's, he proposed that we should adjourn, for the set- 
 tlement of the necessary arrangements respecting the 
 funeral, to the inn. I suggested my own study as a 
 quieter and more appropriate place. He assented, and 
 with his daughter came over to the College, after the 
 Mother Superior had inquired whether Miss Scobell 
 would rather not be absent during the discussion of de- 
 tails, which must always be painful. After they had been 
 offered some refreshment, I told Mr. Scobell — I am sure 
 in the kindest words which I knew how to use — what 
 his daughter's wishes were : and the more so as making 
 all allowance for his feelings of disappointment in find- 
 ing himself not named as executor to the will. He 
 made not the slightest objection to any of the details : 
 and asked if I could give him any idea of the kind of 
 coffin contemplated. I happened to have a model by me, 
 having over and over again been applied to for such a 
 pattern. This I laid before him, and his only remark 
 was : " I can have no objection. I hope to lie myself under
 
 30 
 
 the shadow of the same cross." This model then, which 
 he makes me to have obtruded upon him, with an utter 
 obhvion of every parental feeling, was simply shown him 
 because he himself requested it ; the heartlessness, if 
 there were any, certainly lying with him who expressed, 
 not with him who acquiesced in, the wish. 
 
 It has been studiously said that the riot at Lewes 
 was owing to the time originally fixed having been after- 
 wards altered by a message from myself, 4.30 being 
 substituted for 5.30, and space thus allowed for a mob 
 to congregate. I might well say, What a bitter satire is 
 this on the inhabitants and on the magistrates of Lewes, 
 that a funeral could not be kept waiting an hour without 
 the lives of the attendants being placed in jeopardy ! 
 But even this poor excuse — an excuse which any honest 
 man would blush to make — arose from no fault of ours. 
 Mr. Scobell was so extremely anxious to have the funeral 
 as late as possible, (for both the Mother Superior and 
 myself absolutely deny that the early morning was ever 
 proposed by him,) that, in sending before-hand a person 
 deputed by the undertaker to see that everything was 
 right, the express injunction was given him, " It is not 
 to be later than 5.30." By one of those mistakes which 
 will occasionally happen, notwithstanding the greatest 
 pains to prevent them, this person, though most per- 
 fectly trustworthy, mentioned 4.30 as the time, instead 
 of 5.30. I have it in my power, however, to prove that 
 the message was given to him as I say it was. For we 
 had appointed the Sister who was then nursing for 
 Archdeacon Otter at Cowfold, to meet us at Hay ward's 
 Heath, not later than 4.55, in order to be ready to pro- 
 ceed thence with us by the Express to Lewes. The Ex- 
 press arrives at 5.16 ; and thence 5.30 was fixed as the 
 earliest possible period for the funeral. I had written to 
 the same effect to two clergymen whom we expected to 
 join us, and who will corroborate my statement, if any one 
 pretends to doubt it. So much, and perhaps, too much, 
 for the charge which means, if it means anything : " You 
 ought to have known that Lewes is such a place that, if 
 a funeral be delayed an hour, ladies and clergymen sub- 
 ject themselves to be insulted in the mostbrutal manner." 
 
 My Lord, no one who was present can doubt that the
 
 31 
 
 whole riot was premeditated, and got up, too. with con- 
 siderable skill. There was clearly an impression that 
 some alteration or addition to the service was intended : 
 and it was afterwards, as your Lordship knows, most 
 sedulously propagated (though not, to do him justice, in 
 Mr. Scobell's paper), that I had endeavoured to say 
 some additional prayers at the conclusion, ^yhile the 
 service in the vault was proceeding, it was said, close to 
 where we were standing, " Why, after all, it is very like 
 the Prayer Book !" And if, as the newspapers will have 
 it, the cry of "Now the performance is going to begin,'* 
 referred to any imagined addition, it only bears more 
 decided witness to what I say. Mr. Scobell says, when 
 speaking of the arrangements about the funeral, '* / then 
 stipulated that no addition or omission should be made^ 
 before or after, to or from, the Burial Service of the 
 Church of England^'' Any one would think that I had 
 endeavoured to force upon him some such addition or 
 omission : the whole of the "stipulation" being, in fact, 
 the casual remark, " Of course there will be no depar- 
 ture from the usual service." Let this be noticed. In 
 the first place it is boldly asserted that I had actually 
 endeavoured, in the Churchyard, to add something to the 
 funeral office. That falsehood being disposed of, Mr. 
 Scobell next insinuates that at all events I should have 
 liked to do so. 
 
 Then again the question has been asked, why I was so 
 anxious to go into the vault. Two days before the 
 funeral, I visited All Saints, naturally wishing, as execu- 
 tor, to see the place where our Sister was to be interred ; 
 and in order that I might give directions to the under- 
 taker, which must necessarily depend on the position of 
 the vault. I found men at work in this vault, the greatest 
 irreverence prevailing ; the doors open, and access pos- 
 sible to any one. I was told, on good authority, that 
 children had on that day been playing over, or about, 
 Mrs. Scobell's coffin, lying, as it did, utterly exposed. 
 Of course, I cannot say of my own knowledge that this 
 was so ; but I saw enough to convince me that it easily 
 might have been so. Being myself engaged the next day, 
 I requested my co-executor to see Mr. Scobell, and to 
 tell him that, unless some promise of less negligence for
 
 32 
 
 the future were given us, the funeral could not take place 
 at All Saints. He expressed great sorrow at the account, 
 said that it was not his fault, and explained the means 
 of security which the vault had. Can it be wondered at 
 if I were very anxious to satisfy myself at the close of 
 the funeral as to the state of a vault which I had myself 
 seen so utterly neglected ? 
 
 As to the tale of my having requested a policeman to 
 break into the vault, I can only say that there is not a 
 shadow of truth in it. 
 
 It is most wearisome to answer, one after another, so 
 many calumnies. But your Lordship has, to a certain 
 extent, endorsed the attack. 
 
 It has been said that, when Mr. Scobell and his family 
 joined the procession, I ** persevered in holding my po- 
 sition close to the bier." The fact is that, when Mr. 
 Scobell came out of the schoolmaster's house and said, 
 " You will allow me to precede you," I simply remarked, 
 "Of course," and drew back ; having already, on the 
 previous day, in a rough sketch of the places which the 
 Sisters were to occupy, marked " Mr. Scobell and family" 
 as occupying that next to the bier. A letter of Mr. 
 Scobell's is in my possession, written in answer to one 
 addressed to him by the Mother Superior, in which she 
 had inquired whether, as she took it for granted would 
 be the case, he would not himself be the chief mourner. 
 And yet Mr. Scobell can say ; " I asked permission to 
 follow first ; on repeating my request it was granted !" 
 
 Passing over many minor mis-statements, I would 
 just refer to one remark of Mr. Scobell's. He says that 
 the Sisters of Mercy and myself should, in his opinion, 
 have returned at once to the Schoolmaster's house, 
 as we had promised. Should have returned ! Of 
 course we should, and would thankfully have done so. 
 But Mr. Scobell, after having provided for his own safety, 
 must be strangely ignorant of what that immense and 
 fierce mob really were, if he thinks that I and those who 
 had kept by me, could go in any direction than that in 
 which the crowd chose to drive us ; and this not without 
 considerable danger, especially at first, of being borne 
 from our feet. 
 
 One remark more, and I have done with this most
 
 33 
 
 painful history. On the Sunday week following, Mr. 
 Scobell preaches a funeral sermon for his daughter, 
 and considers it worthy of insertion in a local paper. 
 Only eleven days before, that church and that churchyard 
 had been the scene of one of the most barbarous riots 
 which in modern times has disgraced consecrated 
 ground, and which even now is being commented on 
 with malignant pleasure by those foreign journals which 
 dehght to vilify England and the English Church. 
 Among those rioters, many, in the very nature of 
 things, must have been his own parishioners, some of 
 the three thousand to whom such sad reference has 
 been made at the beginning of this letter. But not 
 one word, so far at least as appears from the printed 
 account, did Mr. Scobell say in reprobation of this great 
 wickedness. If he did in the pulpit, and suppressed it 
 in the journal, for his own credit he is bound to publish 
 the sermon as it was delivered. Otherwise it will be 
 related of him, that he neither endeavoured to suppress 
 the riot while it was going on, nor ventured to condemn 
 it when it was at an end. 
 
 Acting on the newspaper version, or on Mr. Scobell's, 
 of events concerning which you have now for the first 
 time heard the truth, your Lordship withdrew your 
 patronage from S. Margaret's. Of course you were at 
 perfect liberty not only to do so, but to choose your own 
 time for doing so. Yet it is curious to find the Bishop 
 of the Diocese appearing to endorse, certainly not think- 
 ing fit to condemn, the proceedings of a savage mob at 
 Lewes : a mob similar to that which, just a year before, 
 must have taught your Lordship, in the Town Hall of 
 Brighton, its own true nature. One statement, how- 
 ever, in your letter is so entirely at variance with the 
 fact, that I feel bound to contradict it. You say that 
 S. Margaret's "has for some time past, submitted itself 
 to the unlimited influence of Mr. Neale." My Lord, 
 my influence is neither more nor less than it was at the 
 first institution of the Sisterhood. Such a nursing 
 Sisterhood was, simply and solely, my own idea : sug- 
 gested to me in the first instance by the vast tract of 
 country over which I look out from my study window, 
 a country without churches, without clergy, and surely
 
 34 
 
 needing some such machinery as a Religious House only 
 can afford, if it is ever to be evangelized. 
 
 On the law laid down by your Lordship with respect 
 to Confession, I have requested an eminent lawyer, and 
 one whose name is well known as connected with Ec- 
 clesiastical law, to give his opinion. That opinion will 
 accompany my own letter : and on it I need offer no 
 remarks. 
 
 But one further observation on your Lordship's note 
 must be made. You say that the resort to Confession 
 "issues in a continuous increase of weakness.*' As one 
 of the Sisters had just laid down her hfe in the cause of 
 the poor, as all of them had, during the preceding two 
 years, risked every kind of infection over and over again, 
 (I refer you to the Archdeacon of Lewes' Letter,) 
 your Lordship's readers will probably wish that such 
 instances of weakness were more common than they are. 
 It is a weakness, my Lord, of which I have read in 
 Holy Scripture ; '* When I am weak, then am I strong." 
 
 And now, my Lord, to sum up the whole history. 
 You have seen a daughter, wearied out and heart- 
 broken, with home ill-treatment, forbidden to do what 
 her conscience prompted, and forced into actions of 
 which it disapproved, seek, as she had a right to seek, 
 the advice and counsel of a priest. You have seen that 
 advice and counsel given where only and how only under 
 the circumstances it could be given ; where only and 
 how only it could be received without the apprehension of 
 violence, certainly moral, probably personal. You have 
 seen such a state of things disclosed as does not, I 
 hope, exist in many English homes. And then the 
 priest, who steps in, as he is bound, and endeavours to 
 comfort and reassure this poor trembling sufferer, — but 
 who in doing so urges upon her again and again the ne- 
 cessity of frankness and candour, — who is made, under 
 God, the means of removing some portion of her distress, 
 and of giving her some comfort under the trials which 
 yet surround her, — is singled out, first by a Lewes mob, 
 then by all the county newspapers, to be hunted down. 
 The Bishop, without one single inquiry whether these 
 things were so, — nay, refusing the explanation offered to 
 him, with the declaration that, if it lay "open before him
 
 35 
 
 he would refuse to look into it," — ^joins in the outcr}^ 
 and pronounces the father, bv whose unkindness the 
 daughter has been compelled to leave her home, " well- 
 assured of the deep-felt sympathy of every upright can- 
 didly rehgious man ;" and the priest, who was privileged 
 to support and comfort that poor daughter, "heartless" 
 and "infatuated." 
 
 My Lord, I cannot think that, now you are ac- 
 quainted with the truth, you will still allow that letter 
 to remain unwithdrawn, or unqualified. If you do, it 
 is not I who will be injured by such a silence, I can 
 then only say with one who held a position even higher 
 than your own in our Church, " I think my cause in 
 heaven will look of another dye, than the colour that is 
 put upon it here." 
 
 I have the honour to remain, 
 My Lord, 
 Your Lordship's obedient and faithful servant, 
 J. M. NEALE.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. 1. 
 
 The Lord Bishop of Chichester to the Rev. John Scohelh 
 
 ^"Palace, Chichester, Nov. 22nd, 1857. 
 "My dear Mr. Scobell, — You may be well assured of 
 the deep-felt sympathy of every upright candidly religious man. 
 1 beg to oflFer you and your family the sincere expression of 
 mine and Mrs. Gilbert's. I have felt it my duty to write to 
 the Lady Superioress and the Society of S. Margaret's at 
 East Grinsted, a letter with a copy of which I thus briefly 
 intrude upon your sorrows. He must be heartless who could 
 have permitted himself to add to them as that infatuated 
 man from East Grinsted has done. But you will knovir 
 how and where to look both for support in your own suffer- 
 ings, and for the power of a Christian feeling towards him. 
 May these things be abundantly vouchsafed to you sincerely 
 prays, 
 
 " Your faithful brother, 
 
 "A. T. CiCESTR. 
 
 " Rev. John Scobell." 
 
 No. 2. 
 The Lord Bishop of Chichester to Miss Gream. 
 
 "Palace, Chichester, Nov. 2\st, 1857. 
 "Madam, — Your society was first formed as an association 
 of ladies, who should engage themselves and train others to 
 minister to the bodily wants of their fellow-Christians by 
 nursing them in sickness. Such an institution I regarded as 
 praiseworthy and Christian in its object, and I authorised 
 the use of my name in connection with it. It has for some 
 time past submitted itself to the unlimited influence of Mr.
 
 37 
 
 Neale, a clergyman, in whose views and practices it is well 
 known I have no confidence. Especially it is well known 
 that I deny that the Church of England sanctions the habi- 
 tual practice of confession. She acknowledges it only in rare 
 and exceptional cases, and Mr. Neale is unwarranted in using 
 it in the frequent and regular way in which he applied it. 
 Those who admit such application of it to themselves, mani- 
 fest thereby the inadequacy of their direct faith in Christ's 
 promises. Their resort to this unauthorised remedy, by a 
 righteous retribution, issues in a continuous increase of weak- 
 ness, and an accumulation of obstructions in the way of 
 the true influences of grace upon their hearts. They trust 
 more and more in man, and are less and less able, without 
 man, to hope in Christ, i. e., truly to hope in Him. I 
 desire, therefore, that henceforth neither you nor any of 
 your Sisterhood will state that I approve of, or have any 
 connection with, your Institution and Sisterhood of S. Mar- 
 garet's. I desire that any circulars or printed copies of your 
 rules in which my name is introduced may be cancelled and 
 not used with my name in future. Whatever expense is 
 brought upon the Institution l^y the consequent loss of the 
 copies you may have by you I will fully repay. 
 
 " I remain. Madam, vour faithful Pastor, 
 
 " (Signed) A. T. Cicestr. 
 " Miss Gream, or the Lady Superioress 
 of S. Margaret's, East Grinsted." 
 
 No. 3. 
 Miss Gream to the Lord Bishop of Chichester. 
 
 '' December 3rd, 1857. 
 
 " My dear Lord Bishop, — I have come this morning 
 from East Grinsted, hoping that your Lordship would grant 
 me an interview, and I have with me documents of so much 
 importance to the private history of Mr. Scobell and his 
 daughter, that I think you will be sorry if you refuse me an 
 interview. 
 
 " Mr. Neale is extremely anxious to spare the feelings of 
 that unhappy parent, and he hoped that after I had seen you, 
 an arrangement would be made by which the public might be 
 disabused of their false impressions without an exposure in 
 the papers. 
 
 " Will you therefore kindly grant me an interview when 
 quite convenient to yourself? 
 
 " I can wait your own time in Chichester. 
 " I remain, 
 
 " Your Lordship's obedient servant.
 
 38 
 
 The Lord Bishop of Chichester to Miss Gream. 
 
 For the reason given in the text, I do not feel at 
 liberty to print this letter. 
 
 No, 4. 
 Miss Gream to the Lord Bishop of Chichester. 
 
 " S. Margarefs, East Grinsted, 
 "Dec. 6, 1857. 
 
 " My Lord. — I was from home when your letter arrived, 
 or I would have replied to it sooner. 
 
 " In my ignorance, I had supposed that the door of my 
 Pastor would ever be open to one of the least of his flock, if 
 only she had any trouble or difficulty about which she de- 
 sired to consult with him. 
 
 " I am indeed thankful that I have learnt to go to the 
 Chief Shepherd in any time of trial, and that, without any 
 fear of rebuke or repulse. I did not need this last lesson to 
 teach me not to ' lean on an arm of flesh,' although it cer- 
 tainly confirms the daily instructions which I most thank- 
 fully receive. 
 
 " Your Lordship says, * I will be no party to any such in- 
 trusion of strangers into private and family matters ;' but I 
 must remind your Lordship that when on one side mis-state- 
 ments are made, to prejudice yourself and the world against 
 the important work which, by God's blessing, we have un- 
 dertaken, and have been strengthened to do, it is absolutely 
 necessary — not for ourselves individually, for that we might 
 well leave in His keeping * Whose we are, and Whom we 
 serve ' — that we should correct those mis-statements by every 
 means in our power. 
 
 " Mr. Scobell's conduct has made his * family matters ' the 
 necessary means of our doing this, and it must be done, — 
 with how great reluctance on our part our Lord knows 
 well. 
 
 " Had your Lordship allowed me to show you the letter 
 from Mr. Neale, and the papers which I had with me on 
 Thursday, it might have been prevented. 
 
 "I remain, 
 " Your Lordship's obedient servant, 
 " Sarah Ann Gream."
 
 39 
 
 No. 5. 
 The Rev. J. M. Neale to the Lord Bishop of Chichester. 
 
 " Sackville College, Dec. 2nd, 1857- 
 
 " My Lord Bishop, — For the sake of the fearful scandal 
 which otherwise must arise, for the sake of her who is gone 
 and the rest of the family, I most earnestly trust that your 
 Lordship will not compel us, in absolute self-defence, to ex- 
 pose Mr. Scobell. 
 
 *' The extracts which will be laid before you from his 
 daughter's letters, painful and distressing beyond measure as 
 they are, do not relate the worst facts. 
 
 " I am willing to bear almost anything rather than be the 
 means of so exposing a priest of our Church, and a man so far 
 advanced in years ; more especially when I take into consi- 
 deration his near relationship with one whom I loved very 
 dearly. 
 
 " But there are certain accusations under which it could 
 not be right to sit down quietly: and I think that your 
 Lordship's letter, written on the spur of the moment, and 
 without even a request to hear the other side of the question, 
 is one of these. I shall consult with some friends to-morrow, 
 and shall not come to any final decision without earnest 
 prayer that I may be guided right : but my present impres- 
 sion is, that unless your Lordskip, when the true state of the 
 case is laid before you, shall think fit to qualify in some mea- 
 sure the letter to which I refer, I must defend myself from so 
 grave an imputation, let the consequences to Mr. Scobell be 
 what they may. 
 
 " To him I declare most solemnly that, notwithstanding 
 the many untruths he has published, both regarding S. Mar- 
 garet's and myself, I bear not the slightest ill-will. On a 
 former occasion, when it seemed possible that he was about 
 to write to your Lordship, his daughter said to me, * In that 
 case you have my full leave to show any of my letters to the 
 Bishop ; or I will see him myself and tell him the truth, if 
 you had rather.' 
 
 '* I repeat, I will bear any calumny or obloquy from Mr. 
 Scobell himself or from the public press, rather than expose 
 our dear Sister's father. Your Lordship's letter stands on 
 different grounds ; and no words will express my thankful- 
 ness if your Lordship should be enabled in any way — and 
 there must be many methods, — to qualify the effect it must 
 have as it now stands. That every good man must sympa- 
 thise with the father whose conduct to his child was such as 
 these letters show it to have been, (and the letters them-
 
 40 
 
 selves can be corroborated by plenty of living testimony) I am 
 sure your Lordship would be the last, now that you have the 
 truth before you, to assert. 
 
 " I remain, my Lord, 
 
 " Your Lordship's faithful servant, 
 "J. M. Neale." 
 
 No. 6. 
 
 '* Cowfold, December 2, 185?. 
 
 "My dear Miss Gream, — It is with great pain that I 
 perform the necessary duty of requesting that you will re- 
 move my name from the list of the supporters of S. Mar- 
 garet's Home, 
 
 "The withdrawal of the Bishop's sanction would alone 
 have compelled me to take this step. I could not, with a 
 due regard to his authority, have continued to support an 
 institution which had fallen under his disapproval. But I 
 must also declare that my own judgment leads me to the 
 same conclusion, and that my convictions are in full accord- 
 ance with the sentiments expressed in his lordship's letter 
 to you. 
 
 " This duty performed, I gladly turn to another, which is 
 to state that my sense of personal obligation towards your 
 society remains unaltered. The conduct of the tvio sisters 
 who have been employed as nurses in my parish has been 
 such as to claim my unqualified admiration and regard. I 
 can never forget that one of them came, at a few hours' no- 
 tice, and when help from other quarters had been sought in 
 vain, to attend in a gentleman's family a maid-servant, lying 
 between life and death under a virulent typhus ; and that, 
 according to all human judgment, the life of the patient 
 was, under God's providence, saved by her unwearied atten- 
 tion. The other has, for more than three months, been en- 
 gaged in nursing a poor woman afflicted with a terrible cancer, 
 day by day patiently ministering to her wants, dressing the 
 shocking sore, living herself in the cottage, cooking the 
 meals, and performing all the menial offices. Both have 
 performed their work with all a sister's devotion, and with a 
 tenderness and care which mere money cannot purchase for 
 the wealthiest. 
 
 " Nor, although for a time jealously observed, has either 
 of them exhibited the least desire to set forth any peculiar 
 opinions. They have obeyed their rule which placed them 
 under my direction as the clergyman of the parish ; and their 
 readings to the sick have been under my guidance. Had I
 
 41 
 
 so desired, they would have confined themselves strictly to 
 the nurse's office. 
 
 " Under these circumstances it is with no common feelings 
 of distress that I declare myself unable conscientiously to 
 continue among the number of your supporters. Nothing 
 remains for me but the ofi'er of an earnest prayer for your 
 right guidance in all things. 
 
 " Your much obliged, 
 
 «VV. B. Otter." 
 
 lAncoln's Inn, 
 December 10, 1857. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 You have requested me to give you an impartial 
 statement of the Law of the Church of England as to Con- 
 fession and Absolution, so far at least as concerns this late 
 controversy. This I proceed to do in as brief a manner as 
 practicable, premising that there have been, as far as 1 can 
 discover, no judicial decisions on the subject, which would 
 seem to evince that great latitude has been permitted in the 
 matter. Consequently I shall be obhged to derive my 
 opinion entirely from text books. 
 
 1. As to the capacity of the Priests of the Church of 
 England to receive Confessions. 
 
 The capacity to receive Confessions is founded 1. on that 
 part of the exhortation in the Communion Office, which 
 directs any person " who cannot quiet his own conscience, 
 but requireth further comfort or counsel, to come to me," 
 (i.e. the Parish Priest,) " or to some other discreet and 
 learned minister, and to open his grief, that by the ministry 
 of God's Word, he may receive the benefit of Absolution." 
 This form, it may be observed, is only hortatory and depen- 
 dent in a measure on the will of the person who is to '* open 
 his grief." 
 
 2. On the requirements in the Office for the Visitation of 
 the Sick. 
 
 " When any person is sick " [there is no need it seems 
 that the sickness should be dangerous] "notice thereof 
 SHALL be given to the Minister of the Parish, who coming 
 into the person's house, shall say," &c. "Then shall the 
 Minister examine whether he repent him truly of his sins, 
 and be in charity with all the world," &c. "Here shall
 
 42 
 
 the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his 
 sins, if he find his conscience grieved with any weighty mat- 
 ter ; after which Confession the Priest shall absolve him 
 (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort," &c. 
 And the absolution following is of " all thy sins." This 
 form differs from the former in being directory, and in a 
 measure compulsory, but both imply in the strongest man- 
 ner, the duty of the person '* grieved," (i.e. who feels the 
 burthen of his sins,) to confess them to the ** Minister." 
 
 3. On the directions of Holy Scripture (meant I appre- 
 hend by the " Ministry of God's Holy Word" in the address 
 before Holy Communion) to " confess your sins one to 
 another, and pray for one another that ye may be healed ;" 
 and on the fact that all such particular confessions in the 
 New Testament (as in the case of the believers, Acts xix. 18, 
 who " came and confessed, and shewed their deeds,") were 
 apparently made to the Apostles, or to those commissioned 
 by them ; and those in the Old Testament (as that of David 
 to Nathan) to a prophet, or person exercising the priestly 
 office. 
 
 4. On the " Canons, Constitutions, Ordinances, and 
 Synods Provincial, which be not contrariant or repugnant 
 to the laws and statutes of the realm, nor to the damage and 
 hurt of the king's prerogative," which by force of the statute 
 25 Henry VHI. c. 19, and a subsequent one, '" shall now be 
 used and, executed as they were before the making of this 
 act," until further order be made, which never was made. 
 
 These Canons, &c. are now binding, and are in fact the 
 basis of Doctors Commons' law, but of course are modified 
 by the Act of Uniformity, and the Church Discipline Acts, 
 where they differ from the same. 
 
 The following are extracts. " Because he that Confesseth 
 ought in that action to express signs of humility and con- 
 trition ; we charge that all who hear Confessions prevail with 
 their penitents to Confess their sins to the Priest with re- 
 verence and humility." " Let no one deprive him that asks 
 it of the Grace of Confession." — Constitutions of Othobon. 
 A.D. 1268. Johnson, ii. 215. 
 
 " Let laymen be admonished to confess at the very begin- 
 ning of Lent, and always presently after a fall, lest one sin 
 by its natural tendency draw the man to another." 
 
 " Let every one confess to his proper priest [that is, parish 
 priest, or the friar, well authorised — Lyndwood] once in the 
 year, at least." — a.d. 1378. Sudbury's Constitutions, ibid. 
 
 And see the Canons presently quoted. 
 
 *' Let the priest choose such a place in the Church for 
 bearing Confessions as is open to the view of all, and never 
 take the Confession of any, especially of a woman, in secret.
 
 43 
 
 unless in case of necessity, or on account of the sickness of 
 the penitent. Let not one priest admit the parishioner of 
 another to confession without the hcenee of his proper priest 
 or bishop." — a.d. 1322. Reynolds' Constitutions, Johnson, 
 ii. 341. 
 
 With respect to these last Canons, I may remark that they 
 are modified and altered by the words of the exhortation, per- 
 mitting the penitent to go to *' any other discreet and learned 
 minister," — thus allowing the penitent to make his own choice 
 of whom he will. Secondly, that if the Church be not open 
 for Confession, then of course some other fit place must 
 " of necessity " be chosen. Thirdly, that if the Parish Priest 
 refuse, or be notoriously hostile to receiving a Confession, 
 and the Bishop has not licensed another, then independent 
 of the expression of the Exhortation " o/ necessity" the 
 penitent must select another. Fourthly, that if the penitent 
 cannot conveniently come to such other selected minister, 
 he may clearly go to the penitent or the directions of the 
 Prayer Book would be frustrated. 
 
 " Let the Priest in enjoining penance diUgently attend to 
 the circumstances of the crime, the quality of the person, 
 the nature, time, place, and cause of the sin, and the devo- 
 tion of the penitent ; and having diligently and distinctly 
 considered all these particulars, let him enjoin penance." — 
 Reynolds' Constit. Ibid. 341. 
 
 n. As TO THE Power of the Priests of the 
 Church of England to give Absolution. 
 
 This is derived from the words of the Ofiice of the " Order- 
 ing of Priests." 
 
 " Receive the Holy Ghost for the Office and work of a 
 Priest in the Church of God now committed to thee by the 
 Imposition of our hands. Whose sins thou dost forgive, 
 they are forgiven ; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are 
 retained." 
 
 Also from the words of the Absolution in the Common 
 Prayer : " God hath given power and commandment to His 
 Ministers to declare and pronounce to His people, being 
 penitent, the Absolution and remission of their sins." 
 
 Also from the unequivocal expressions in the Office for 
 Visitation of the Sick : " By His [Jesus Christ's] autho- 
 rity committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins." 
 
 These statements are founded on the words of our Lord 
 to the Apostles. S. John xx. 22. " He breathed on them, 
 and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; whoseso- 
 ever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whoseso- 
 ever sins ye retain, they are retained ;" and on the equiva- 
 lent words, S. Matt. xvi. 19, and xviii. 18 ; on the declaration 
 of our Lord: "Even as My Father hath sent Me, so
 
 44 
 
 send I you;" and on the example of Nathan in the Old 
 Testament, who after David's confession, said to him, " The 
 Lord hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die." 
 
 In addition to what I have before cited from the Ancient 
 Canons and Constitutions which have statutory force, I find 
 the following : 
 
 " Let all who hear confessions expressly absolve their 
 penitents, by pronouncing the underwritten words : ' By the 
 authority of which I am possessed I absolve thee from thy 
 sins.' "— A.D. 1268. Constitutions of Othobon. Johnson, 
 ii. 215. 
 
 And the same is implied in numerous other places which 
 give directions as to the mode and strictness, limits and se- 
 cresy, of Confession, matters which are not here in contro- 
 versy. But, I would remark that this authority is in the 
 Prayer Book and in the canons above mentioned given to the 
 Priest to be exercised without any restriction or limitation 
 whatever, except the condition of real repentance in the 
 penitent, without which he was not to be absolved. 
 
 in. As TO THE PARTICULAR PERIODS FOR CON- 
 FESSION AND Absolution. 
 
 By the Exhortation in the Communion Office before cited 
 it appears that, " opening their grief," (i.e. sins which bur- 
 then them) is recommended before Communion to all per- 
 sons who cannot by the means therein before mentioned "quiet 
 their own consciences," that is, who think recourse to a 
 " minister " necessary and desirable. But every person is 
 to communicate '* three times in the year at least," of which 
 Easter is to be one. It is therefore lawful for every person 
 to go three times a year at least to his " minister," to open 
 these his griefs or sins especially before Easter; and conse- 
 quently the " minister " is not only at hberty, but bound to 
 receive such his Confession and to absolve him if required, 
 at those particular periods, at least. 
 
 By the Office for the Visitation of the Sick, above quoted, 
 the Confession is directory to the laity ; and hearing it, and 
 giving absolution, obligatory on the Priest so often as a per- 
 son is sick and requires it. 
 
 By the Ancient Canons at Eanham (a.d. 1009, Johnson, 
 i. 487,) " Let every Christian man often resort to his shrift, 
 and confess his sins without shamefacedness." 
 
 In addition to what I have before cited from the Constitu- 
 tions and Canons which have statutable authority as to the 
 frequency of Confession, I find this, " Let Confessions be 
 heard thrice in the year, and let men be admonished to com- 
 municate as often, viz. at Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas." 
 . . " Whoever does not confess to his proper priest once in 
 the year at least, and receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist
 
 45 
 
 at Easter (unless he think he ought to abstain from it by the 
 advice of the Priest) let him be forbidden entrance into the 
 Church while he is alive, and let him be deprived of Christian 
 burial when dead." 
 
 All pains and penalties contained in these Canons for neg- 
 lecting Confession are done away with by the clauses in the 
 Prayer Book, which refer it to the voluntary desire of the 
 penitent only ; yet I apprehend they still remain, indicative 
 and directory of the proper course to be pursued both by 
 clergy and laity. 
 
 IV. You have requested me to advise whether the state- 
 ment of the Bishop that " the Church of England does not 
 sanction habitual Confession, but acknowledges it only in 
 rare and exceptional cases," is correct in point of law and 
 fact. 
 
 It would have been well had the Bishop stated what these 
 "rare and exceptional cases" are; I do not understand to 
 what he alludes. Does he mean before the reception of the 
 Sacrament ? but that must be three times in the year at the 
 least, and many persons receive it much oftener. Does he 
 refer to sickness? but that happens to most men often in 
 their lives ; and surely the spiritual exercises lawful and pro- 
 fitable then are as much so in health. Does he allude to the 
 case of a disquieted conscience ? but in persons with strong 
 religious feelings the conscience is very often disquieted, and 
 ought to be so in others who have them not. 
 
 The assertion of the Bishop is, I think, shown to be with- 
 out foundation by the authorities I have previously adduced. 
 But there are other reasons which concur to prove this. 
 
 1. It will be observed that the directions in the Prayer 
 Book, and in so much of the preceding Canons as remain' in 
 force, are without any restriction or limitation whatever in 
 point of time, and are entirely affirmative. But it is a well 
 known rule in logic, that you cannot draw a negative re- 
 stricted or limited conclusion from an affirmative and unre- 
 stricted premise. So here the proposition being, that when- 
 ever a person before Communion is disquieted in conscience, 
 whenever he is sick, he may confess : you cannot from this 
 deduce any conclusion whatever as to any time when he is 
 not to confess. The test is easy. Suppose a person to be a 
 weekly communicant, to continue that habit for years, to 
 have a very tender conscience, and consequently before each 
 Communion to be disquieted in conscience, and to seek to 
 have his mind quieted, by opening his grief and confessing 
 his sin to another according to the precept of S. James, 
 — could it be contended with success that this habit was not 
 sanctioned by the Church of England ? I think not. 
 But further, a mf??mMm_.beln_g . recommended, ojr. directed, is
 
 46 
 
 no exclusion of a maximum, but rather pre-supposes it. 
 Thus in the Westerton case, the direction to cover the Com- 
 munion Table with " a carpet of silk or other decent stuff" 
 was held to authorize several carpets of various colours to be 
 put upon it at different and set times." " It is consonant to 
 law," says Lyndewood, " to affirm that this mode of speech 
 in the singular number, contains in itself the plural also." If 
 I am recommended to attend Church on Sundays, does that 
 therefore discountenance my attendance during week days ? 
 If the law compels me to go a mile, that is no reason why I 
 should not go twain. When I am asked to give alms at the 
 offertory, that cannot imply that I am not to give alms at 
 other times. So neither does the recommendation to '* open 
 griefs" to a " Minister" before Communion, and to make a 
 " special Confession" in sickness, exclude my doing the same 
 at other times. The inference is the other way. If it be 
 specially right in these cases, it will be ordinarily right in 
 others of the like nature. 
 
 The custom of foreign Protestant Churches, except the 
 Calvinists, who are few in number, accords with this view. 
 
 The Augsburgh Confession (ch. xi.) teaches of Confession, 
 that " Private Absolution is to be retained in the Churches, 
 although Confession of all sins be impossible." The Apology 
 of the Confession, well known to have Melancthon's autho- 
 rity, declares, " We retain Confession especially because of 
 Absolution, which is the word of God pronounced by divine 
 authority, through the Power of the Keys ; wherefore it would 
 be impious to take private Confession out of the Church." 
 The same Apology directs that " Confession be made yearly." 
 In another place it is said to be used '* often in the year." 
 In the Articles of Smalkalde, Absolution and the Power of the 
 Keys with Confession is said to be instituted by Christ 
 Himself, and to be " perutilis." This is the law through- 
 out the whole of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Prussia, and 
 almost all the rest of Germany. 
 
 In Sweden especially the Parish Pastor is bound to visit 
 every family every year, and each person is bound to 
 confess to him under a pecuniary penalty, and if neglecting 
 to do so is excluded from Communion, and exclusion from 
 the Communion for a certain period is followed by civil inca- 
 pacity and banishment. In Prussia and elsewhere in Ger- 
 many the custom of Confession is universal among rehgious 
 persons, though neglected by others ; and among the stricter 
 Lutherans it is always a pre-requisite to Communion. At 
 Halberstadt in Prussia, about a month since, the Pastors 
 refused to marry a couple who had not previously confessed. 
 At a General Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran 
 Churches of nearly all Germany, except Prussia^iel^it
 
 47 
 
 Dresden in May, 1856, Resolutions {inter alia) were passed : 
 1. "No one to be admitted to Communion without Confes- 
 sion." 2. " That a return to the old custom of Private Abso- 
 lution and Confession is absolutely necessary." 6. " Abso- 
 lution is not to be given to more than one person at a time, 
 nor except in words which signify precisely and clearly the 
 action of Absolution." 
 
 It may be objected further that the Church of England, 
 except in the case of sickness, gives no form for Private 
 Confession and Absolution, and therefore does not sanction 
 it. But this argument proves far too much. It is notorious 
 that there are no forms pecuhar to Private Confession either 
 in the Roman Catholic or Lutheran-Evangelical Communi- 
 ties, yet both require and practise it. 
 
 Lastly, you ask me if your suspension by the Bishop from 
 officiating in the Diocese of Chichester affects your power to 
 receive Confessions and Absolve according to the law of the 
 Church of England. This suspension could not, I conceive, 
 affect any but your Public Ministrations; but since the 
 Bishop has never, although often requested, assigned to you 
 any " good and sufficient cause" — nor indeed any cause at 
 all — for suspension, which the Church Discipline Act re- 
 quires him to do, it seems to me that this suspension is 
 a gratuitous and simply arbitrary act, and null in law. 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 J. D. CHAMBERS. 
 The Rev. J. M. Neale.
 
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